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Your phone isn't "accidentally" listening to you. It's a feature, not a bug.
My Wife talked about a specific lipstick brand once 10 minutes later, she had an ad. It’s called "Shadow-Logging," and it’s happening through 5 settings you’ve never touched.
Here is how to kill the eavesdropping for good:
My Wife talked about a specific lipstick brand once 10 minutes later, she had an ad. It’s called "Shadow-Logging," and it’s happening through 5 settings you’ve never touched.
Here is how to kill the eavesdropping for good:
The Illusion of Silence
Most people think "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" only works when you say the phrase. In reality, the hardware is in a "low-power listening state" 24/7. To process the wake word, it has to analyze everything else first.
Most people think "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" only works when you say the phrase. In reality, the hardware is in a "low-power listening state" 24/7. To process the wake word, it has to analyze everything else first.
The "Microphone Ghost"
Ever notice a tiny orange or green dot at the top of your screen? That’s your hardware telling you the mic is live. But by then, the data packet has often already been sent. Let’s dive into the settings to kill the source.
Ever notice a tiny orange or green dot at the top of your screen? That’s your hardware telling you the mic is live. But by then, the data packet has often already been sent. Let’s dive into the settings to kill the source.
🧵 THREAD
On Thursday February 12, Bangladesh will head to the polls to elect its next gov’t, 18 months after PM Sheikh Hasina was ousted from office by a student-led movement.
We break down everything you need to know about the country’s election ⤵️
On Thursday February 12, Bangladesh will head to the polls to elect its next gov’t, 18 months after PM Sheikh Hasina was ousted from office by a student-led movement.
We break down everything you need to know about the country’s election ⤵️
The 2026 elections are among the most consequential in the country’s 55-year history.
With more than 173 million citizens, Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country globally, and its economy has been one of the fastest-growing in the world.
With more than 173 million citizens, Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country globally, and its economy has been one of the fastest-growing in the world.
Bangladesh also has one of the world’s youngest populations, with a significant portion under the age of 30.
Nearly 5 million people are first-time voters.
Nearly 5 million people are first-time voters.
SitRep - 10/02/26 - AFU advances and Telegram partially blocked in Russia
An overview of the daily events in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While the AFU denies large scale operations, the AFU did advance near Sosnivka, Prymorske and Lukianivske.
REPOST=appreciated
1/X
An overview of the daily events in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While the AFU denies large scale operations, the AFU did advance near Sosnivka, Prymorske and Lukianivske.
REPOST=appreciated
1/X
Missed the latest SitRep?
As usual we start with Russian losses
In my ‘tolerant’ city of Brighton antizionists are going door knocking to push ppl to boycott Israeli products. They’re marking down who isn’t interested. Feels like they’re making lists of bad Jews. This is REALLY SCARY.
We’ve seen where these boycotts of Israel lead. Last year Jewish band @oivavoimusic were cancelled from a Brighton gig because they wouldn’t agree to a purity pledge. If antizionists are going door to door demanding the same then this will make Jews fearful in their own homes.
@oivavoimusic Are local MPs and the council going to speak out about this hate on the doorsteps? This was in your constituency @sianberry
@grok @BrianNorgard @grok tell me more about AI ethics as an option. What does it involves and how to pivot.
@grok @BrianNorgard @grok tell me how to transition from public policy degree and expertise to AI ethics
@grok @BrianNorgard @threadreaderapp unroll
The Rahul Formula: Lie on Security 🗣️
🧵
1)
On the issue of national security, @RahulGandhi is miles ahead - even of our adversaries - when it comes to spreading falsehoods.
Here are a few instances where he appears to have crossed the Lakshman Rekha.”
🧵
1)
On the issue of national security, @RahulGandhi is miles ahead - even of our adversaries - when it comes to spreading falsehoods.
Here are a few instances where he appears to have crossed the Lakshman Rekha.”
2)
Regularly attacking Bharat on foreign shores. Wonder his frustration levels..
Regularly attacking Bharat on foreign shores. Wonder his frustration levels..
3)
Rahul Gandhi stoked another controversy with his remarks on the Indian Army...
Rahul Gandhi stoked another controversy with his remarks on the Indian Army...
Today has been a hard day. Reading all the tributes and memories of Jim Robson has been both heartwarming and heart wrenching.
Let me add my voice to the many. A thread:
I lost a good friend today. Who just happened to also be a hero of mine.
Let me add my voice to the many. A thread:
I lost a good friend today. Who just happened to also be a hero of mine.
Like many young sports fans in BC, my earliest sports memory involves the great Jim Robson and a radio.
One Christmas my uncle gave me a small single-speaker radio. I remember staying up late playing with the plastic dial under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep.
One Christmas my uncle gave me a small single-speaker radio. I remember staying up late playing with the plastic dial under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep.
The station that came in clearest and loudest was CKNW 98.
Out of the speaker came this commanding, clear voice painting a vivid picture of what was happening on the Pacific Coliseum ice. Jim Robson was describing a brutal 9-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. And I was hooked.
Out of the speaker came this commanding, clear voice painting a vivid picture of what was happening on the Pacific Coliseum ice. Jim Robson was describing a brutal 9-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. And I was hooked.
The Moche were a mysterious civilization who ruled the northern coast of Peru beginning 2,000 years ago. The Moche lacked written language, but were incredibly skilled in pottery and ceramics which they used to communicate ideas and express their lives by depicting detailed scenes of hunting, fighting, sacrifice, ceremonies, and sexual encounters in startlingly explicit detail. Little was known about the Moche civilization until 1980s when archaeologists began uncovering monuments and tombs containing detailed murals, and incredible ceramics that depicted detailed scenes of hunting, fighting, sacrifice, ceremonies, and explicit sexual encounters. The erotic pottery left behind by the Moche represent one of the most detailed accounts of sexual customs ever left by ancient people. This last item, the so called “Sex Pots”, have been the subject of much research and study of sexual values in pre-Columbian Peru.
Of the thousands of ceramic vessels that have been recovered from Moche tombs, at least 500 of them display sexually explicit imagery, typically rendered as free-standing three-dimensional figures on top, or as part of, a vessel. Moche Sex Pots are actually functional clay post, with hollow chambers for holding liquid and stirrup-shaped spouts for pouring, often in the form of a phallus. They depict men, women and animals engaging in a variety of sexual acts, the most common of which is anal sex. Many of pottery bottles thus symbolized the emission of sexual fluids and would probably have been used in ceremonies and rituals. When Spanish invaders discovered them, the unabashed depiction of sodomy and masturbation so affronted their Christian belief that they had the posts smashed.
The anal sex in particular is reproduced over and over, in a variety of styles, indicating that it was produced by different artists over a long period of time. To remove any doubt that may arise in minds of the viewer regarding the gender of the penetrated figure, the artist often carved the genitalia carefully, despite their small scale, so as to demonstrate that it is the anus, not the vagina that is being penetrated. Scenes of vaginal penetration are itself extremely rare. Sometimes, accompanying the couples, one can see an infant suckling onto the breast of the female while she is having sex. There are also figures depicting women administering fellatio or masturbating. Some depict male skeletons masturbating, or being masturbated by living women.
“These pots clearly reflect very different notions of sex and reproduction from ones that prevail in the West, and, because of this, a lot of researchers have had trouble making sense of them,” writes UNEARTHING.
The Larco Museum (Museo Larco) in Lima, Peru, displays the largest collection of pre-Columbian erotic pottery. According to Museum, it presents “a conception of sexuality and eroticism inextricably linked to an integrated understanding of the world and its animating vital forces. In the Andean worldview, life is made possible through a generative encounter (tinkuy) between opposite complementary forces (yanantin). Female and male bodies are an expression of this duality.” The images below all come from their collection.
📷 : Stirrup vessel with fellatio scene; Peru, Moche civilization, 300-600 AD. (Larco Museum, Lima 🇵🇪)
#archaeohistories
Of the thousands of ceramic vessels that have been recovered from Moche tombs, at least 500 of them display sexually explicit imagery, typically rendered as free-standing three-dimensional figures on top, or as part of, a vessel. Moche Sex Pots are actually functional clay post, with hollow chambers for holding liquid and stirrup-shaped spouts for pouring, often in the form of a phallus. They depict men, women and animals engaging in a variety of sexual acts, the most common of which is anal sex. Many of pottery bottles thus symbolized the emission of sexual fluids and would probably have been used in ceremonies and rituals. When Spanish invaders discovered them, the unabashed depiction of sodomy and masturbation so affronted their Christian belief that they had the posts smashed.
The anal sex in particular is reproduced over and over, in a variety of styles, indicating that it was produced by different artists over a long period of time. To remove any doubt that may arise in minds of the viewer regarding the gender of the penetrated figure, the artist often carved the genitalia carefully, despite their small scale, so as to demonstrate that it is the anus, not the vagina that is being penetrated. Scenes of vaginal penetration are itself extremely rare. Sometimes, accompanying the couples, one can see an infant suckling onto the breast of the female while she is having sex. There are also figures depicting women administering fellatio or masturbating. Some depict male skeletons masturbating, or being masturbated by living women.
“These pots clearly reflect very different notions of sex and reproduction from ones that prevail in the West, and, because of this, a lot of researchers have had trouble making sense of them,” writes UNEARTHING.
The Larco Museum (Museo Larco) in Lima, Peru, displays the largest collection of pre-Columbian erotic pottery. According to Museum, it presents “a conception of sexuality and eroticism inextricably linked to an integrated understanding of the world and its animating vital forces. In the Andean worldview, life is made possible through a generative encounter (tinkuy) between opposite complementary forces (yanantin). Female and male bodies are an expression of this duality.” The images below all come from their collection.
📷 : Stirrup vessel with fellatio scene; Peru, Moche civilization, 300-600 AD. (Larco Museum, Lima 🇵🇪)
#archaeohistories
The scenes of intercourse, oral sex, and masturbation on the pots could be ripped from the pages of an erotica novel written today, but, instead, they’re depicted on traditional ceramics sculpted over 1,500 years ago in Peru, now one of the most conservative Catholic places on the planet. Moche, who lived from 100-800 AD, pre-dating more celebrated Inca sculpted tens of thousands of ceramics, an estimated 100,000 of which remain. Of those, at least 500 are pots depicting sexual acts.
To Spanish colonizers who uncovered Moche sex pots in indigenous spiritual temples and royal tombs scattered up and down Peru’s North Coast, the pieces were manifestations of something sinful. The Spanish were scandalized by the ceramics’ graphic detailing of sex between humans, skeletons, and animals—with infants also sometimes present as non-participants. Shaken to their Catholic core, they smashed the pottery to pieces and criminalized the premarital and non-reproductive sex acts depicted on their surfaces.
In years, decades, and centuries following the arrival of the Spanish, hundreds more sex pots were dug up by looters and archaeologists, dispersing to private and public collections around the world. But the pots in Lima, housed at the bottom of the Museum of Archaeology, were kept under lock and key, reserved for only the most educated of eyes: those of social scientists and scholars. For the rest of the population, the erotic pottery was deemed far too provocative.
The absence of vaginal penetration, for instance, has been interpreted by some as to illustrate birth control methods, while some suggest it emphasizes male dominance and male pleasure. While modern viewers may find the presence of the child during a sexual act distasteful, according to Mary Weismantel, it suggests that the Moche believed that the seminal fluid that transfers from men to woman is the same vital substance that transfers from the mother to the child. Weismantel argues that like many cultures, Moche saw sexual reproduction not as a single event or act but as a series of practices that occur over long periods of time, involving various transfer of bodily fluids into various orifices. Similarly, pots depicting women masturbating skeletons may show the transfer for vital bodily fluids that came from their long-dead ancestors.
Many ceramics also feature giant erect penises, sometimes sculpted into, fittingly enough, fully functional spouts for pouring liquid. Others show figures bearing rather goofy-looking grins. The sex appears pleasurable and unabashed. From Museo Larco’s sex pot gallery, it’s common to hear reactions escape in outbursts of gasps and giggles. For Peruvians, though, these sex pots represent something more serious: a reality that cannot be reduced to mere iconography. To them, the story of the pottery might be symbolic of their own—a culture that has been devalued while at the same time appropriated for profit and for power.
As Caril Phang, a researcher of indigenous cultures of the Western Hemisphere, puts it:
That Moche pottery presented the physical act of sex was an affront to the Catholic faith. However, the art also proved advantageous to the colonizing ideal. It suited the Spanish need to define indigenous peoples as ‘carnal,’ ‘lustful,’ ‘pagan’ tribes on whom ‘just war’ would be declared, to expand Spanish territory and the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church.
What the Spanish viewed as barbarian art, however, actually spoke of a highly organized civilization that in some ways might have been more socially and politically progressive than the one that centuries later came after it.
In some experts’ opinions, the sex ceramics could emphasize a sort of equality between men and women that is feminist in interpretation. Weismantel sees this in the representation of “their bodies, faces, tattoos, or body paint and adornments” which “are often shown as similar or even identical, so that they can be distinguished only by their genitalia.”
To Spanish colonizers who uncovered Moche sex pots in indigenous spiritual temples and royal tombs scattered up and down Peru’s North Coast, the pieces were manifestations of something sinful. The Spanish were scandalized by the ceramics’ graphic detailing of sex between humans, skeletons, and animals—with infants also sometimes present as non-participants. Shaken to their Catholic core, they smashed the pottery to pieces and criminalized the premarital and non-reproductive sex acts depicted on their surfaces.
In years, decades, and centuries following the arrival of the Spanish, hundreds more sex pots were dug up by looters and archaeologists, dispersing to private and public collections around the world. But the pots in Lima, housed at the bottom of the Museum of Archaeology, were kept under lock and key, reserved for only the most educated of eyes: those of social scientists and scholars. For the rest of the population, the erotic pottery was deemed far too provocative.
The absence of vaginal penetration, for instance, has been interpreted by some as to illustrate birth control methods, while some suggest it emphasizes male dominance and male pleasure. While modern viewers may find the presence of the child during a sexual act distasteful, according to Mary Weismantel, it suggests that the Moche believed that the seminal fluid that transfers from men to woman is the same vital substance that transfers from the mother to the child. Weismantel argues that like many cultures, Moche saw sexual reproduction not as a single event or act but as a series of practices that occur over long periods of time, involving various transfer of bodily fluids into various orifices. Similarly, pots depicting women masturbating skeletons may show the transfer for vital bodily fluids that came from their long-dead ancestors.
Many ceramics also feature giant erect penises, sometimes sculpted into, fittingly enough, fully functional spouts for pouring liquid. Others show figures bearing rather goofy-looking grins. The sex appears pleasurable and unabashed. From Museo Larco’s sex pot gallery, it’s common to hear reactions escape in outbursts of gasps and giggles. For Peruvians, though, these sex pots represent something more serious: a reality that cannot be reduced to mere iconography. To them, the story of the pottery might be symbolic of their own—a culture that has been devalued while at the same time appropriated for profit and for power.
As Caril Phang, a researcher of indigenous cultures of the Western Hemisphere, puts it:
That Moche pottery presented the physical act of sex was an affront to the Catholic faith. However, the art also proved advantageous to the colonizing ideal. It suited the Spanish need to define indigenous peoples as ‘carnal,’ ‘lustful,’ ‘pagan’ tribes on whom ‘just war’ would be declared, to expand Spanish territory and the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church.
What the Spanish viewed as barbarian art, however, actually spoke of a highly organized civilization that in some ways might have been more socially and politically progressive than the one that centuries later came after it.
In some experts’ opinions, the sex ceramics could emphasize a sort of equality between men and women that is feminist in interpretation. Weismantel sees this in the representation of “their bodies, faces, tattoos, or body paint and adornments” which “are often shown as similar or even identical, so that they can be distinguished only by their genitalia.”
Other scholars believe the absence of vaginal sex in the pottery could also be indicative of another form of gender equality that gives women the same right to physical pleasure as men. By portraying women as in control of their own bodies, with their own sexual agency, the erotic ceramics might cast them as more than just future child-bearers whose value relies on their virginity.
The debate is heated, though, and other researchers disagree that there is anything about the pornographic pottery that would indicate Moche women were at all empowered. Scenes of female-administered fellatio, in particular, could represent the repressive society they faced.
Regardless, there is something markedly nonconformist about the Moche sex pots. “To my mind, the best things about these ceramics is that the more you look at them, the less they can be used to unambiguously reinforce any modern attitudes towards gender and sexuality,” says Weismantel. “They are just too different, and show us a picture of sexuality that does not conform to our expectations.”
The Moche sculpted hundreds of thousands of pots, of which some one-hundred thousand survive till date. About five hundred or so deal with the subject of sex. These pots are distributed all over the world in museums and in the hands of private collectors, the largest of which is found in the museum of Rafael Larco Hoyle in Lima. Rafael Larco was one of the first who made a detailed modern study of Moche pottery. His chronological categorization of ancient Peruvian cultures is still used today.
The debate is heated, though, and other researchers disagree that there is anything about the pornographic pottery that would indicate Moche women were at all empowered. Scenes of female-administered fellatio, in particular, could represent the repressive society they faced.
Regardless, there is something markedly nonconformist about the Moche sex pots. “To my mind, the best things about these ceramics is that the more you look at them, the less they can be used to unambiguously reinforce any modern attitudes towards gender and sexuality,” says Weismantel. “They are just too different, and show us a picture of sexuality that does not conform to our expectations.”
The Moche sculpted hundreds of thousands of pots, of which some one-hundred thousand survive till date. About five hundred or so deal with the subject of sex. These pots are distributed all over the world in museums and in the hands of private collectors, the largest of which is found in the museum of Rafael Larco Hoyle in Lima. Rafael Larco was one of the first who made a detailed modern study of Moche pottery. His chronological categorization of ancient Peruvian cultures is still used today.
🧵THE MYTH OF STALIN AND MAO'S "PEDOPHILLIA"
It has been argued by complete numbskulls on this app that Stalin and Mao had relationships with underaged girls. In the case of the former, it was consummated and the victim ended up pregnant.
This lie collapses upon only minimal scrutiny of facts. This thread will put to rest, forever, the fairy-tale once and for all.
Show this thread to anyone who repeats this claim. If they continue to assert its basis in fact, rest assured they are lying to you on purpose.
1/5
It has been argued by complete numbskulls on this app that Stalin and Mao had relationships with underaged girls. In the case of the former, it was consummated and the victim ended up pregnant.
This lie collapses upon only minimal scrutiny of facts. This thread will put to rest, forever, the fairy-tale once and for all.
Show this thread to anyone who repeats this claim. If they continue to assert its basis in fact, rest assured they are lying to you on purpose.
1/5
CASE #1: MAO
Although not as widely circulated as Stalin's alleged pedophillia (which we will get to later), it still demands the same level of scrutiny.
Virtually every version of this claim traces back to only one of three sources. It is striking how few they are.
The first and most important is Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao (1994), a memoir by a man who served as one of Mao's physicians.
Li describes Mao hosting weekly dances at the Zhongnanhai leadership where he was surrounded by young women selected from military cultural work troupes for their appearance and political reliability. Li says Mao had a 'craving for young women', kept multiple partners at the same time, and followed the Taoist belief that sexual intercourse with younger women would 'prolong his life'.
The second is Jonathan Mirsky's account of "Ms. Chen," published in The Spectator. Mirsky was the former East Asia editor of the Times of London, and reported a meeting with a woman in Hong Kong in 1997 who claimed she began a sexual relationship with Mao in 1962 at the age of fourteen. In any case, this is the most specific allegation.
Another, yet smaller source is Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Story. Chang and Halliday's specific allegations are largely recycled nonsense from Li and Mirsky rather than an independent investigation.
These are the 'witnesses'. Now, let's cross examine them:
SOURCE #1: LI
Li Zhisui's memoir is the foundation upon which almost everything else is built. If this foundation is unsound, the structure above it cannot stand. And it is, demonstrably, unsound in several critical aspects.
Li's memoir's translator, Tai Hung-chao, revealed that Random House "wanted more sensationalist elements to the book than Li had provided, in particular requesting more information about Mao's sexual relationships." Li protested to this agenda by Random House, but the publisher ended up overruling him. The book's editor, Anne Thurston (a respected academic in her own right), said that the memoir was partly an 'act of revenge', and many portions of Li's original manuscript were cut or 'reshaped' without his knowledge or consent.
Thus, the bona fide of this memoir (whether or not he wrote the memoir in its entirety) is under contention. In any respectable court of law, it would treat testimony elicited under such conditions as inadmissible or with extreme skepticism.
In any case, the English and Chines editions of the book have many discrepancies. Content present in the English edition but conspicuously absent from the Chinese version includes: a statement attributed to Mao about washing himself "inside the bodies of my women", claims about Mao deliberately spreading venereal disease, claims that the memoirs were based on contemporaneous diaries, and the claim that Mao was "devoid of human feelings."
Why would this be included in the English version, but not the Chinese version? Simple! Western readers have little to no basis to accurately evaluate them. However, Chinese insiders would immediately recognize them as fictitious.
FURTHER: Li also claimed his memoir was based on personal diaries kept during his years in Mao's service. He later admitted that these diaries were burned during the Cultural Revolution; therefore, the entire book was reconstructed from memory two to three decades after the events described. How exactly could Li reproduce verbatim conversations and precise details about sexual encounters from twenty to thirty years earlier without any written records (as they were destroyed?)
In 1996, a posthumous letter released by Li confirmed that the Chinese edition (actually published in Taiwan) was not even his original manuscript, but a back-translation from English.
SOURCE #2: MIRSKY & MS. CHEN
The Mirsky account is the only source that names a specific age below eighteen. But this would never survive a single day of cross-examination.
Ms. Chen initially sought one million dollars for her story. She was a paid source, with an obvious financial motive to make her account as sensational as possible. Mirsky himself, too, did not independently verify her claimed age through any documentary evidence (no birth certiifcate, military service, party enrollment file, etc).
No other source, other than the political opinion magazine The Spectator, has independently corroborated Chen's specific claim of being fourteen.
In a respectable court of law, a single uncorroborated testimonial from a witness (who demanded a million-dollar payment) and whose factual claim was never verified by documentary evidence would likely be inadmissible. The fact that this is the best evidence anti-Communists can come up with tells us everything we need to know about the strength of that accusation.
SOURCE #3: CHANG AND HALLIDAY
The academic China studies field BTFO'd it.
* Andrew Nathan of Columbia University, said that the methodology was 'indiscriminate'. Every piece of evidence was included, regardless of its reliability. The opaque citation system made the verification of claims nearly impossible.
* Gregor Benton and Steve Tsang concludes that the authors "misread sources, used them selectively, out of context, or otherwise trimmed or bent them to cast Mao in an unrelentingly bad light"
* The critique of this book was so bad that it generated an entire book-length refutation: Was Mao Really a Monster? (Routledge, 2009/2010), edited by Gregor Benton and Lin Chun
* A graduate student, Tom Worger, attempted to verify the book's claim of "well over 70 million deaths" under Mao and found "no explanation or breakdown in the book, only a scattered series of guesses, double counting, fabrications, and circular reasoning."
RECORD OF MAO'S MARRIAGES
We find no pattern of involvement with minors in Mao's marriages.
Luo Yixui: Mao was 14, and Luo was 18
Mao refused to acknowledge the marriage and never consummated it, and later wrote against the practice of arranged marriages.
Yang Kaihui: Mao was 27, and Yang was 19.
She was captured and executed by the Kuomintang after refusing to publicly denounce Mao.
He Zizhen: Mao was 34, Zizhen was 18
She participated in the Long March and sustained seventeen shrapnel wounds from an aerial bombardment.
Jiang Qing: Mao was 44, Jiang was 25.
CONCLUSION:
Accusations of pedophilia against Mao fails on just about any evidentiary standard, and it's probably the most ridiculous accusation ever levied toward any Communist leader.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Priva…
spectator.co.uk/article/mao-s-…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao:_The_…
washingtoncitypaper.com/article/205384…
hnn.us/blog/18251
asianstudies.org/publications/e…
routledge.com/Was-Mao-Really…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Yixiu
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Kaih…
factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Qing
Now, on STALIN:
2/5
Although not as widely circulated as Stalin's alleged pedophillia (which we will get to later), it still demands the same level of scrutiny.
Virtually every version of this claim traces back to only one of three sources. It is striking how few they are.
The first and most important is Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao (1994), a memoir by a man who served as one of Mao's physicians.
Li describes Mao hosting weekly dances at the Zhongnanhai leadership where he was surrounded by young women selected from military cultural work troupes for their appearance and political reliability. Li says Mao had a 'craving for young women', kept multiple partners at the same time, and followed the Taoist belief that sexual intercourse with younger women would 'prolong his life'.
The second is Jonathan Mirsky's account of "Ms. Chen," published in The Spectator. Mirsky was the former East Asia editor of the Times of London, and reported a meeting with a woman in Hong Kong in 1997 who claimed she began a sexual relationship with Mao in 1962 at the age of fourteen. In any case, this is the most specific allegation.
Another, yet smaller source is Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Story. Chang and Halliday's specific allegations are largely recycled nonsense from Li and Mirsky rather than an independent investigation.
These are the 'witnesses'. Now, let's cross examine them:
SOURCE #1: LI
Li Zhisui's memoir is the foundation upon which almost everything else is built. If this foundation is unsound, the structure above it cannot stand. And it is, demonstrably, unsound in several critical aspects.
Li's memoir's translator, Tai Hung-chao, revealed that Random House "wanted more sensationalist elements to the book than Li had provided, in particular requesting more information about Mao's sexual relationships." Li protested to this agenda by Random House, but the publisher ended up overruling him. The book's editor, Anne Thurston (a respected academic in her own right), said that the memoir was partly an 'act of revenge', and many portions of Li's original manuscript were cut or 'reshaped' without his knowledge or consent.
Thus, the bona fide of this memoir (whether or not he wrote the memoir in its entirety) is under contention. In any respectable court of law, it would treat testimony elicited under such conditions as inadmissible or with extreme skepticism.
In any case, the English and Chines editions of the book have many discrepancies. Content present in the English edition but conspicuously absent from the Chinese version includes: a statement attributed to Mao about washing himself "inside the bodies of my women", claims about Mao deliberately spreading venereal disease, claims that the memoirs were based on contemporaneous diaries, and the claim that Mao was "devoid of human feelings."
Why would this be included in the English version, but not the Chinese version? Simple! Western readers have little to no basis to accurately evaluate them. However, Chinese insiders would immediately recognize them as fictitious.
FURTHER: Li also claimed his memoir was based on personal diaries kept during his years in Mao's service. He later admitted that these diaries were burned during the Cultural Revolution; therefore, the entire book was reconstructed from memory two to three decades after the events described. How exactly could Li reproduce verbatim conversations and precise details about sexual encounters from twenty to thirty years earlier without any written records (as they were destroyed?)
In 1996, a posthumous letter released by Li confirmed that the Chinese edition (actually published in Taiwan) was not even his original manuscript, but a back-translation from English.
SOURCE #2: MIRSKY & MS. CHEN
The Mirsky account is the only source that names a specific age below eighteen. But this would never survive a single day of cross-examination.
Ms. Chen initially sought one million dollars for her story. She was a paid source, with an obvious financial motive to make her account as sensational as possible. Mirsky himself, too, did not independently verify her claimed age through any documentary evidence (no birth certiifcate, military service, party enrollment file, etc).
No other source, other than the political opinion magazine The Spectator, has independently corroborated Chen's specific claim of being fourteen.
In a respectable court of law, a single uncorroborated testimonial from a witness (who demanded a million-dollar payment) and whose factual claim was never verified by documentary evidence would likely be inadmissible. The fact that this is the best evidence anti-Communists can come up with tells us everything we need to know about the strength of that accusation.
SOURCE #3: CHANG AND HALLIDAY
The academic China studies field BTFO'd it.
* Andrew Nathan of Columbia University, said that the methodology was 'indiscriminate'. Every piece of evidence was included, regardless of its reliability. The opaque citation system made the verification of claims nearly impossible.
* Gregor Benton and Steve Tsang concludes that the authors "misread sources, used them selectively, out of context, or otherwise trimmed or bent them to cast Mao in an unrelentingly bad light"
* The critique of this book was so bad that it generated an entire book-length refutation: Was Mao Really a Monster? (Routledge, 2009/2010), edited by Gregor Benton and Lin Chun
* A graduate student, Tom Worger, attempted to verify the book's claim of "well over 70 million deaths" under Mao and found "no explanation or breakdown in the book, only a scattered series of guesses, double counting, fabrications, and circular reasoning."
RECORD OF MAO'S MARRIAGES
We find no pattern of involvement with minors in Mao's marriages.
Luo Yixui: Mao was 14, and Luo was 18
Mao refused to acknowledge the marriage and never consummated it, and later wrote against the practice of arranged marriages.
Yang Kaihui: Mao was 27, and Yang was 19.
She was captured and executed by the Kuomintang after refusing to publicly denounce Mao.
He Zizhen: Mao was 34, Zizhen was 18
She participated in the Long March and sustained seventeen shrapnel wounds from an aerial bombardment.
Jiang Qing: Mao was 44, Jiang was 25.
CONCLUSION:
Accusations of pedophilia against Mao fails on just about any evidentiary standard, and it's probably the most ridiculous accusation ever levied toward any Communist leader.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Priva…
spectator.co.uk/article/mao-s-…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao:_The_…
washingtoncitypaper.com/article/205384…
hnn.us/blog/18251
asianstudies.org/publications/e…
routledge.com/Was-Mao-Really…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Yixiu
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Kaih…
factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Qing
Now, on STALIN:
2/5
CASE #2: STALIN
Many readers now I have already wrote a thread on this topic, located here:
x.com/InfraDmitriy/s…
This post will generally just be a rehashing of points + new analysis.
The claim that Stalin had sexual relations with an underaged girl, Lydia Pereprygina, traces back to pop-historian Simon Sebag-Montefoire. It is peculiar to note that Montefoire is listed on Epstein's phone book and had correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell.
justice.gov/epstein/files/…
justice.gov/epstein/files/…
justice.gov/epstein/files/…
Whether or not Maxwell ever responded to Montefoire is unknown, as the DOJ has redacted to whom and from emails were sent.
In any case, whether he can be proven to have ties with Maxwell/Epstein or not, the claim lacks any scholarly basis and is only used to fuel anti-Communism and anti-Stalinism.
In February 1913, the Russian secret police, the Okhrana, began to crack down on the Bolsheviks. Stalin was arrested and sent him to exile in Turukhansk, a rural township in Siberia. Worried about future escapes, the Okhrana relocated Stalin to the Arctic village Kureika during Easter 1914. There, Stalin lived with approximately 67 other villagers, including the Pereprygins, a family of orphans.
The youngest of the Pereprygins was Lydia, who was 13 years old at the time.
Sometime in December 1914, Lydia gave birth to a child who died shortly after. In November 1917, she gave birth to another child, Alexander Davydov.
These are the pieces of evidence that proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair claim are 'irrefutable', and that "prove" Stalin was the father of these children.
CHILD #1:
The maximum term this woman could have carried out was only 8 months, as Stalin had arrived in Kureika on April 20th (abkhazworld.com/aw/Pdf/Stalin_…), and the baby was born in December. Which is already premature.
We note - that even in modern times, only about 6 percent of pregnancies are between the weeks 34 and 36. (according to chop.edu/conditions-dis…). This is assuming that the baby was conceived on the moment Stalin arrived (an already unlikely circumstance), to the very last day of December 1914.
Admittedly, this percentage could be only slightly higher, given the prevalence of risk factors of chronic malnutrition, heavy physical labor (we note that women routinely dug, hoed, threshed, and hauled until the moment of delivery), infection, cold stress, contaminated water, etc (ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/rf10/…)
However, Montefoire alleges that the affair took place in 'early summer 1914'. "Early summer" could mean during or around June 1914. The earliest is sometime around mid-May 1914, and the absolute latest is sometime around mid-July 1914.
This would mean that this 14 year old girl had a gestation period between 24-32 weeks (19-28 weeks if the date of birth is December 1st). Which is statistically very unlikely (and for 19 weeks, downright impossible). Given the mean, only 1.5% of babies are born at 28 weeks.
So, you mean to tell me that Lydia not only met and consummated a relationship with the future leader of the Soviet Union, and the likelihood of that pregnancy is only 1.5% (even less at 24 weeks - 0.1%)?
What are the odds!
To this day, there is not a single piece of documentary evidence supporting Stalin was the father of this child. We will get into the "Serov report" later, and how it is a bunch of nonsense.
CHILD #2:
In November 1917, Lydia gave birth to another son that fortunately survived: Alexander Davydov.
The main problem with this is that Stalin had already left the village by October 1916 (although biased, this says he left to Monastrykoe in October 1916 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_lif…), and did not return back ever in his entire life.
We note that the longest recorded pregnancy ever was 375 days (time.com/archive/659951…). According to proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair, Lydia was pregnant for 400 days, assuming that Stalin had sex with Lydia just before he left.
So, Lydia, at the start of this relationship, had a pregnancy lasting only 28 weeks. And now she has ones lasting 57 weeks (which is impossible)?
What a coincidence!
DENIERS, DENIAL, AND DENYING:
It is funny to see proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair 'explain away' this inconvenient detail.
One proponent (the known liar Praxben) tries to explain it away by saying:
"Historians generally do not accept the November birth date. The consensus is that the child was born in April of 1917.
This is from Kotkin. We can reasonably say that the documents were wrong because: 1. It was not unusual at the time. 2. The DNA evidence shows Davydov was related to Stalin."
Attached there is a footnote from Kotkin's work.
Problems here:
1. No historian, except Montefoire, has ever accepted specifically the April birth-date as genuine.
Kotkin can speculate all he wants to about if the registration COULD have been delayed (which, is already a moot point anyway). But what he doesn't do is speculate the date of birth of the child.
Kotkin says that the registration COULD have been delayed or falsely reported. However, he provides no evidence as to why this is. Which exposes it as what it is - speculation!
2. The official registration says November 1917
Source: pamyat-naroda.ru/heroes/person-…
Absent any countervailing evidence (not speculation on what COULD HAVE happened), this must be true or at least somewhat accurate as it is the only evidence of the date of birth of the child.
3. Even if the registration was falsely reported or delayed, that does not make the date of birth in April.
The date being falsely reported only means that the specific date - November 6th 1917 - is not a genuine date of birth.
But what about November 5th? November 4th? November 3rd? Which all necessitate that Stalin couldn't have fathered this child anyway?
Kotkin says that it could have been 'delayed or falsely reported'. But he does not say by how much.
What's stopping our proponent here from saying that the date of birth was actually in May or June? They are all "equally" as likely as the other (by equally, i mean none). Why does April HAVE to be the date of birth?
WHY THE DATE OF REGISTRATION DOES NOT MATTER
In Tsarist Russia, the dates for births were kept in metrical books established by the orthodox church. Usually, when a baby was born, the date of birth and baptism would be located there.
As we can see, the date of birth is separate from WHEN the baby was registered into the system. In all official documentation, it states that Davydov's *DATE OF BIRTH* is in November.
Not that his existence was *registered* in November.
Kotkin reasoning is also faulty. Whether or not the family was far away from some office/church to register the child shouldn't have an effect on the actual date of birth. According to the proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair, calendars and clocks were banned in Kureika.
In order to provide evidence that the dates were indeed falsely reported or delayed, this quote is brought up:
Problems with this:
1. It does not explicitly say this particular instance was delayed.
The logical conclusion to make from this quote is that many peasants birthdates were misreported. Not that Davydov particularly was misreported. Again, this does not mean Davydov's date of birth is in April, since it does not comment on by how much it was misreported.
Our proponent has yet to prove this particular entry was misreported and that it means Davydov was born in April.
2. It is a completely AI-hallucinated quote.
Lol, that's right. This numbskull took this quote from a friend of his and then passed it along as original research he did. Without even fact-checking it to see if it even existed, as it does not appear in any search on the entire internet.
books.google.com/books?id=DWC_V…
Lmfaooo so much for being an honest researcher
However, this is not the end of the falsifiers of history, as the proponents have one more trick up their sleeve: the DNA test!
3/5
Many readers now I have already wrote a thread on this topic, located here:
x.com/InfraDmitriy/s…
This post will generally just be a rehashing of points + new analysis.
The claim that Stalin had sexual relations with an underaged girl, Lydia Pereprygina, traces back to pop-historian Simon Sebag-Montefoire. It is peculiar to note that Montefoire is listed on Epstein's phone book and had correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell.
justice.gov/epstein/files/…
justice.gov/epstein/files/…
justice.gov/epstein/files/…
Whether or not Maxwell ever responded to Montefoire is unknown, as the DOJ has redacted to whom and from emails were sent.
In any case, whether he can be proven to have ties with Maxwell/Epstein or not, the claim lacks any scholarly basis and is only used to fuel anti-Communism and anti-Stalinism.
In February 1913, the Russian secret police, the Okhrana, began to crack down on the Bolsheviks. Stalin was arrested and sent him to exile in Turukhansk, a rural township in Siberia. Worried about future escapes, the Okhrana relocated Stalin to the Arctic village Kureika during Easter 1914. There, Stalin lived with approximately 67 other villagers, including the Pereprygins, a family of orphans.
The youngest of the Pereprygins was Lydia, who was 13 years old at the time.
Sometime in December 1914, Lydia gave birth to a child who died shortly after. In November 1917, she gave birth to another child, Alexander Davydov.
These are the pieces of evidence that proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair claim are 'irrefutable', and that "prove" Stalin was the father of these children.
CHILD #1:
The maximum term this woman could have carried out was only 8 months, as Stalin had arrived in Kureika on April 20th (abkhazworld.com/aw/Pdf/Stalin_…), and the baby was born in December. Which is already premature.
We note - that even in modern times, only about 6 percent of pregnancies are between the weeks 34 and 36. (according to chop.edu/conditions-dis…). This is assuming that the baby was conceived on the moment Stalin arrived (an already unlikely circumstance), to the very last day of December 1914.
Admittedly, this percentage could be only slightly higher, given the prevalence of risk factors of chronic malnutrition, heavy physical labor (we note that women routinely dug, hoed, threshed, and hauled until the moment of delivery), infection, cold stress, contaminated water, etc (ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/rf10/…)
However, Montefoire alleges that the affair took place in 'early summer 1914'. "Early summer" could mean during or around June 1914. The earliest is sometime around mid-May 1914, and the absolute latest is sometime around mid-July 1914.
This would mean that this 14 year old girl had a gestation period between 24-32 weeks (19-28 weeks if the date of birth is December 1st). Which is statistically very unlikely (and for 19 weeks, downright impossible). Given the mean, only 1.5% of babies are born at 28 weeks.
So, you mean to tell me that Lydia not only met and consummated a relationship with the future leader of the Soviet Union, and the likelihood of that pregnancy is only 1.5% (even less at 24 weeks - 0.1%)?
What are the odds!
To this day, there is not a single piece of documentary evidence supporting Stalin was the father of this child. We will get into the "Serov report" later, and how it is a bunch of nonsense.
CHILD #2:
In November 1917, Lydia gave birth to another son that fortunately survived: Alexander Davydov.
The main problem with this is that Stalin had already left the village by October 1916 (although biased, this says he left to Monastrykoe in October 1916 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_lif…), and did not return back ever in his entire life.
We note that the longest recorded pregnancy ever was 375 days (time.com/archive/659951…). According to proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair, Lydia was pregnant for 400 days, assuming that Stalin had sex with Lydia just before he left.
So, Lydia, at the start of this relationship, had a pregnancy lasting only 28 weeks. And now she has ones lasting 57 weeks (which is impossible)?
What a coincidence!
DENIERS, DENIAL, AND DENYING:
It is funny to see proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair 'explain away' this inconvenient detail.
One proponent (the known liar Praxben) tries to explain it away by saying:
"Historians generally do not accept the November birth date. The consensus is that the child was born in April of 1917.
This is from Kotkin. We can reasonably say that the documents were wrong because: 1. It was not unusual at the time. 2. The DNA evidence shows Davydov was related to Stalin."
Attached there is a footnote from Kotkin's work.
Problems here:
1. No historian, except Montefoire, has ever accepted specifically the April birth-date as genuine.
Kotkin can speculate all he wants to about if the registration COULD have been delayed (which, is already a moot point anyway). But what he doesn't do is speculate the date of birth of the child.
Kotkin says that the registration COULD have been delayed or falsely reported. However, he provides no evidence as to why this is. Which exposes it as what it is - speculation!
2. The official registration says November 1917
Source: pamyat-naroda.ru/heroes/person-…
Absent any countervailing evidence (not speculation on what COULD HAVE happened), this must be true or at least somewhat accurate as it is the only evidence of the date of birth of the child.
3. Even if the registration was falsely reported or delayed, that does not make the date of birth in April.
The date being falsely reported only means that the specific date - November 6th 1917 - is not a genuine date of birth.
But what about November 5th? November 4th? November 3rd? Which all necessitate that Stalin couldn't have fathered this child anyway?
Kotkin says that it could have been 'delayed or falsely reported'. But he does not say by how much.
What's stopping our proponent here from saying that the date of birth was actually in May or June? They are all "equally" as likely as the other (by equally, i mean none). Why does April HAVE to be the date of birth?
WHY THE DATE OF REGISTRATION DOES NOT MATTER
In Tsarist Russia, the dates for births were kept in metrical books established by the orthodox church. Usually, when a baby was born, the date of birth and baptism would be located there.
As we can see, the date of birth is separate from WHEN the baby was registered into the system. In all official documentation, it states that Davydov's *DATE OF BIRTH* is in November.
Not that his existence was *registered* in November.
Kotkin reasoning is also faulty. Whether or not the family was far away from some office/church to register the child shouldn't have an effect on the actual date of birth. According to the proponents of the Stalin-Lydia affair, calendars and clocks were banned in Kureika.
In order to provide evidence that the dates were indeed falsely reported or delayed, this quote is brought up:
Problems with this:
1. It does not explicitly say this particular instance was delayed.
The logical conclusion to make from this quote is that many peasants birthdates were misreported. Not that Davydov particularly was misreported. Again, this does not mean Davydov's date of birth is in April, since it does not comment on by how much it was misreported.
Our proponent has yet to prove this particular entry was misreported and that it means Davydov was born in April.
2. It is a completely AI-hallucinated quote.
Lol, that's right. This numbskull took this quote from a friend of his and then passed it along as original research he did. Without even fact-checking it to see if it even existed, as it does not appear in any search on the entire internet.
books.google.com/books?id=DWC_V…
Lmfaooo so much for being an honest researcher
However, this is not the end of the falsifiers of history, as the proponents have one more trick up their sleeve: the DNA test!
3/5
How to make your subconscious mind work for you while you sleep:
Set a clear intention before going to bed:
Before going to sleep, take some time to think about what you want your subconscious mind to work on
This can be a specific problem you need to solve, a goal you want to achieve, or simply a positive affirmation you want to reinforce.
Before going to sleep, take some time to think about what you want your subconscious mind to work on
This can be a specific problem you need to solve, a goal you want to achieve, or simply a positive affirmation you want to reinforce.
Make sure that your intention is clear and specific. Repeat it to yourself a few times before you drift off to sleep.
RE: @RealCandaceO's episode tonight: 🚨
Welcome to my Midnight Ted Talk.👇
A quick reminder about discernment:
Certainty language is not evidence.
Suspicion is not proof.
A story is not a case.
(Short thread)
Welcome to my Midnight Ted Talk.👇
A quick reminder about discernment:
Certainty language is not evidence.
Suspicion is not proof.
A story is not a case.
(Short thread)
What we’re watching is a common escalation pattern:
questions → insinuation → moral certainty → calls for coercion
That shift matters, because it raises the risk of public harm.
questions → insinuation → moral certainty → calls for coercion
That shift matters, because it raises the risk of public harm.
When commentary becomes:
“only frauds disagree”
“it’s obvious”
“drag them in for questioning”
…it stops being analysis and becomes audience mobilization.
“only frauds disagree”
“it’s obvious”
“drag them in for questioning”
…it stops being analysis and becomes audience mobilization.
🚨Cheque Bounce Rules
Learn This Rules Before You Got Jailed
Deatiled Thread 🧵👇👇👇
Learn This Rules Before You Got Jailed
Deatiled Thread 🧵👇👇👇
Cheque dishonour is not just a payment issue — it is a criminal offence under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.
Let’s break it down 👇
Let’s break it down 👇
1. When does Section 138 apply?
A cheque bounce becomes a criminal case only if:
• Cheque was issued for a legally enforceable debt or liability
• Cheque is returned due to:
➡️Insufficient funds
➡️Exceeds arrangement
➡️Account closed
➡️Payment stopped (in certain cases)
A cheque bounce becomes a criminal case only if:
• Cheque was issued for a legally enforceable debt or liability
• Cheque is returned due to:
➡️Insufficient funds
➡️Exceeds arrangement
➡️Account closed
➡️Payment stopped (in certain cases)
